Here’s the big sports story these days: Roger Clemens will have his day in court.

“Clemens gets his day in court” is code word for: More lawyers will get paid. More politicians will get their name on the 6pm news. And more of America’s tax monies will be spent to put Clemens on the stand and, if found guilty, imprison him for up to 21 months.

I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking about not locking my front door at night if they get Clemens off the streets.

What a scam these people in Washington are producing these days. The country is mired in the worst slump since the Orioles started 0-21 in 1988 and they’re going to show us they’re willing to roll up their sleeves and get down to business by chasing after a baseball player who lied to them.

Spending millions of dollars of the tax payer’s money trying to uncover the great baseball-steroids scandal almost justifies the government getting lied to, if you ask me. It serves those goofs right.

What Clemens really wanted to say to them was: “It’s none of your f’ing business what I did. If you have evidence in place to charge me with a crime, do it. If not, get off my back.”

Clemens though, ever the intimidator, tried to bully his way through the courtroom the way Tom Cruise did in A Few Good Men and it backfired on The Rocket.

Great pitcher. Dummy in the courtroom. You can’t win ‘em all.

But none of this can possibly outweigh the absolutely idiotic thought of our government wasting time and money trying to punish a baseball player for lying to them about injecting or using illegal drugs.

Kids are dying in Afghanistan, chasing some madman who is far more petrified of getting caught than whatever the result might be if he were, in fact, captured. Let him keep hiding in caves, I say. If we do find him, the worst thing we can do is kill him. Hiding in fear of his life and going to bed every night wondering if tomorrow morning could be his last day as a free man is a far worse punishment, only our geniuses in Washington haven’t figured that out yet. And bring those kids home before some other parent has to put a flag on the shelf above the fireplace.

In the meantime, though, if we can’t catch Bin Laden, we can fry ourselves a pitcher.

Forget the kids that are dying with guns on their shoulders for no reason. Clemens is going down, as Jim Gray might say.

In this country, today, we’ve become much more attached to style over substance. It’s not IF you broke the law that matters anymore. What matters is which stuffed suit gets your case. Does he or she need a high profile conviction in time for the next election? If so, you’re f**ked. Have these Republicans in D.C. actually accomplished anything over the last few years? Pick from these answers: “No”, or “No, sir”. But you can bet they’re gonna accomplish something now. They’re going to hold Roger Clemens’ feet to the fire because he lied to Congress.

Miguel Tejada lied to Congress too. Only he admitted to doing so, which means we excuse his CRIMINAL mistake. It’s style that matters. Substance – or the truth – isn’t that important anymore.

A handful of guys in major league baseball came clean and said they had used steroids — illegal to do so, mind you — and we held up their arms in triumph and lauded them for “doing the right thing”. As Dave Matthews sings: “Funny the way it is”…Brian Roberts and Jose Canseco and Jay Gibbons and Andy Pettitte all confessed to using the needle but the Republicans didn’t bother hounding them.

Canseco has made MILLIONS of dollars serving as the steroid flag waver and no one has even thought about punishing him.

By the way, I think Clemens did steroids. But I couldn’t care less at this point what happens to him in the aftermath of this stupid pursuit for justice. He’s just like any other baseball juicer. He’s a user. Period. I don’t make any other judgments about whether or not it was the right thing or wrong thing to do. Most of the users figured it out — “If i use, I get better. And if I get better, I make more money for my family.” I’m sure glad I wasn’t ever faced with that dilemma: Make $500,000 for 4 years and battle like hell to stay employed or make $25 to $50 million over 5 or 10 years. That’s the choice a lot of players like David Segui and Jay Gibbons were faced with and guess which path they took?

So the mere wonder of it all — “did (insert player name here) use steroids?” – is so 2006 that it no longer matters to me. In fact, name a player and I’ll just say “yeah, he did steroids”. It doesn’t even matter if he did or didn’t at this point…because admitting that you DID seems to be the only way to get people to stay off your back.

You see, once you admit you did it, you’re no longer worthy of a 3-month trial. Attorneys can’t bill $140.00 an hour on someone’s confession. No politician who’s already failing to serve his or her own community can stop what they’re doing and tend to this mammoth problem of someone “lying to the government” if someone confesses to the crime ahead of time.

One of those clowns in a $3,000 suit and $225 tie was on TV the other day and said, “You just can’t have people lying to the government. It won’t be tolerated.”

Too bad we’re all not smart enough to hold the government accountable for the daily lying they’ve done to us over the last decade or two. I’d love to get a piece of that payout when it comes around.

They got themselves a baseball player…in cold blood. Lying to the government. And by golly, they’re gonna get him, too.

The mere fact that a large portion of the testimony against Clemens is coming from a drug dealer remains one of the more laughable parts of this whole story.

I can’t wait for the suits to put Brian McNamee on trial. Hell, that might take longer than the O.J. case. Tons of lawyers and politicians will prosper off that mega-mother.

I forget…is McNamee ever going to be tried by the U.S. government for dealing dope? Or are we “granting him immunity” because we’d rather have the guy he sold to?

We’re all smart enough to see what’s going on here. It’s a high-profile name (Clemens) and another excuse for a bunch of people on Capitol Hill to look busy throughout 2011. Do you think for one minute that if Brandon Inge was the guy on the hot seat instead of Clemens that everyone would be lathered up about punishing him to the fullest extent of the law? Of course not. Getting Clemens into court gives D.C.’ers a reason to break a sweat next year. And it gets people on TV. And helps get them re-elected.

“Hey Mr./Ms. Politician, any chance you can look into that environmental hazard in your community back home? You know, they could use some funding to clean up that area so all the kids who live in the town that helped vote you in don’t all have green teeth and purple wax in their ears when they turn 16.”

The stuffed suit replies: “Well, you know, I’d just love to help with that effort, I know how important protecting the environment is…remember, it was one of my platforms last election. But I’m involved in this Clemens case right now. Did you hear? That son-of-a-bitch lied to us about using steroids.”

If the kids in the community all make it past age 22 with their arms and legs still attached to their bodies, maybe they’ll get to play catch with their son or daughter someday. Not that a politician would worry about that. “I can’t do it all,” the suits probably say over a $60 filet at Ruth’s Chris and a $68 bottle of Cakebread. “I have this Clemens case to handle. One of my interns will see to it that my town’s environmental issues get taken care of. I can’t make the CBS Evening News with a shovel in my hand and protective suit on, but I can get a few seconds of an audio clip by berating the baseball player for fibbing to the government.”

Meanwhile, inner city court dockets all over the country are so jam-filled with double and triple bookings that hordes of REAL criminals have to be released because there’s either no room for them in local prisons or their due process can’t be served in a timely enough fashion.

Too bad those folks who killed, robbed and sold drugs didn’t lie to Congress about using steroids — we might be able to get them a swift, fair (ha ha) trial.

And for anyone saying, “Well, then, what SHOULD his punishment be?”, I contend that Clemens and the rest of the confirmed junkies should face the same roadblocks as Pete Rose. Just keep them out of the game. They’re no longer on scholarship, so to speak. Out of the game, unavailable to coach or work in the game and, for the most part, unable to make any money from the game of baseball. That’s it. And our government can continue on with things that really matter like health care, better and more efficient state and national spending, and, increased safety through both the military and border patrols.

What’s more important? Putting Roger Clemens on trial and possibly behind bars or making sure American families have food on their table at night and go to bed without fear for their safety? I’ll go with the latter.

But now, we know this much: Roger Clemens will get his day in court. And unless something completely unexpected happens, he’ll be found guilty. And the front page of the paper will have Clemens in some prison ordered outfit walking out of the courthouse en route to the longest 21 months of his life.

He shouldn’t have lied to Congress.

That’s a fact.

It IS a good life lesson to teach our youngsters. Don’t lie to the government. Because when you do, depending on how bored they are with their current assignment or how badly they need their name in the paper or how coming down hard on lawbreakers might get them 4 more years of their life of luxury otherwise known as Washington D.C….you just might get nailed for it.

The other life lesson is more complicated, because our country has been built on hiring the right people to orchestrate our nation’s day-to-day well being, safety and financial security.

When I read about the government wasting millions of dollars chasing athletes around and grabbing a couple of them by the scruff of the neck and doing all they can to incarcerate them, it dawns on me that we’ve done a sh*tty job of hiring “the right people”.